The Religion of the Ancient Celts

Page: 105

Dindsenchas, which describes many
archaic usages, we learn that "the firstlings of every issue and
the chief scions of every clan" were offered to Cromm
Cruaich—a sacrifice of the first-born,—and that at one
festival the prostrations of the worshippers were so violent that
three-fourths of them perished, not improbably an exaggerated
memory of orgiastic rites. Dr.
Joyce thinks that these notices are as incredible as the mythic
tales in the Dindsenchas. Yet the tales were doubtless quite
credible to the pagan Irish, and the ritual notices are certainly
founded on fact. Dr. Joyce admits the existence of foundation
sacrifices in Ireland, and it is difficult to understand why human
victims may not have been offered on other occasions also.
{237}

The purpose of the sacrifice, namely, fertility, is indicated in
the poetical version of the cult of Cromm—

The Nemedian sacrifice to the Fomorians is said to have been
two-thirds of their children and of the year's supply of corn and
milk810—an obvious
misunderstanding, the victims really being offered to obtain corn
and milk. The numbers are exaggerated, but
there can be no doubt as to the nature of the sacrifice—the
offering of an agricultural folk to the divinities who helped or
retarded growth. Possibly part of the flesh of the victims, at one
time identified with the god, was buried in the fields or mixed
with the seed-corn, in order to promote fertility. The blood was
sprinkled on the image of the god. Such practices were as obnoxious
to Christian missionaries as they had been to the Roman Government,
and we learn that S. Patrick preached against "the slaying of yoke
oxen and milch cows and the burning of the first-born progeny" at
the Fair of Taillte. As
has been seen, the Irish version of the Perseus and Andromeda
story, in which the victim is offered not to a dragon, but to the
Fomorians, may have received this form from actual ritual in which
human victims were sacrificed to the Fomorians.813 In a Japanese version of the same
story the maiden is offered to the sea-gods. Another tale suggests
the offering of human victims to remove blight. In this case the
land suffers from blight because the adulteress Becuma, married to
the king of Erin, has pretended to be a virgin. {238} The
Druids announced that the remedy was to slay the son of an
undefiled couple and sprinkle the doorposts and the land with his
blood. Such a youth was found, but at his mother's request a
two-bellied cow, in which two birds were found, was offered in his
stead.814 In another instance in the
Dindsenchas, hostages, including the son of a captive
prince, are offered to remove plagues—an equivalent to the
custom of the Gauls.

Human sacrifices were also offered when the foundation of a new
building was laid. Such sacrifices are universal, and are offered
to propitiate the Earth spirits or to provide a ghostly guardian
for the building. A Celtic legend attaches such a sacrifice to the
founding of the monastery at Iona. S. Oran agrees to adopt S.
Columba's advice "to go under the clay of this island to hallow
it," and as a reward he goes straight to heaven.816 The legend is a semi-Christian
form of the memory of an old pagan custom, and it is attached to
Oran probably because he was the first to be buried in the island.
In another version, nothing is said of the sacrifice. The two
saints are disputing about the other world, and Oran agrees to go
for three days into the grave to settle the point at issue. At the
end of that time the grave is opened, and the triumphant Oran
announces that heaven and hell are not such as they are alleged to
be. Shocked at his latitudinarian sentiments, Columba ordered earth
to be piled over him, lest he cause a scandal to the faith, and
Oran was accordingly buried alive. In a
Welsh instance, Vortigern's castle cannot be built, for the stones
disappear as soon as they are laid. Wise men, probably Druids,
order the sacrifice of a child born without a father, and the
sprinkling of the site with his blood.
"Groaning hostages" were placed under a fort in {239} Ireland,
and the foundation of the palace of Emain Macha was also laid with
a human victim. Many
similar legends are connected with buildings all over the Celtic
area, and prove the popularity of the pagan custom. The sacrifice
of human victims on the funeral pile will be discussed in a later
chapter.